AEW Dynamite & Collision 5/27/2026: 3 Things We Hated & 3 Things We Loved

Welcome to Wrestling Inc.'s weekly review of "AEW Dynamite," which once again ran straight into an hour of "AEW Collision!" We're talking the entire three-hour block here (though as we'll discuss, it was actually more than three hours) though admittedly we will not be able to cover anywhere near everything that happened on the show(s). Among other things, however, we will absolutely hit Brody King's win over Claudio Castagnoli and Mark Davis triumphing over Jack Perry, both of which were men's Owen Hart Cup tournament matches.

If you missed the show and need to get caught up on things like MJF's world title celebration post-DON, or Cope and Cage's aborted efforts to do a five-second pose, we highly recommend checking out our "AEW Dynamite & Collision" 5/27/26 results page. If you want to know what the WINC crew thought of Wednesday's proceedings — or at least the parts that stood out to us the most — this column is the place to be. Here are three things we hated and three things we loved about the 5/27/26 episode of "AEW Dynamite & Collision!"

I'll be honest: I wasn't sure about Kevin Knight's heel turn at Double or Nothing this past Sunday and I'm still not sure about it now after this "Dynamite" and "Collision" special.

There were several small things about Knight's opening segment that added up to make for something that I wasn't particularly a fan of. First off, Knight's explanation of feeling that he should've been the one to challenge for the AEW World Championship and not being able to trust Darby Allin to get the job done didn't quite make sense to me. Yes, Knight did retain his TNT Championship against MJF on the April 29 episode of "Dynamite", but he had also already unsuccessfully challenged Allin for the AEW World Championship on the May 6 episode of "Dynamite." That right there is proof that he already couldn't get the job done, nullifying the entire point of what he was saying and his reasoning for attacking Allin.

Second, "Speedball" Mike Bailey came off looking a little bit naive by thinking Knight would shake his hand and the pair would make up. It seemed pretty clear to me that Knight is pretty set on his new attitude and has no intentions of reverting back to his previous character after Double or Nothing on Sunday, and while I know they're former tag team partners, it just didn't make Bailey look super great.

I also think that Knight's attack could've been just a little bit longer to amp up the brutality and really hammer home that this is the end of Knight and Bailey as a tag team. I didn't need a ten minute attack, but maybe another couple of moves in there to create a little bit of extra emotion and intensity. I'm willing to see how things play out with Knight for the next couple of weeks before I decide whether or not I like it, but I haven't been loving what I've seen so far.

Written by Olivia Quinlan

Competing for a spot in the semi-finals of the Owen Hart Cup were Brody King and Claudio Castagnoli this week, pitting two very large and powerful men in the ring to do what they do best. They did that and then just a little bit more, wrestling – or rather, more aptly, fighting – a bout that never really framed one as superior. 

It was just a war of attrition, both men hitting one another with lariats, European uppercuts, boots and an array of simple yet effective strikes designed simply to incapacitate the respective behemoth stood before them. Only as the bout went on did the gulf in resilience become clear, with Castagnoli surely the faster but gradually slowing, and therefore pulled into a battle of raw size that he was never going to best King in. 

He could not get off his signature killshots – the giant swing, the neutralizer, or the Ricola Bomb. He did manage to get off a pop-up European uppercut right at the end of the bout, but King managed to just shake it off, dropping him with a lariat that finally kept Castagnoli down for the count of three. 

Nothing too fancy or grandiose, just two men with size and power fighting like guys with size and power. Wearing one another down with repetitive shots designed to draw the oxygen from the lungs and shock the muscles into exhaustion. 

Eventually, it was that exhaustion that led to Castagnoli falling short, simply too many shots from a much larger opponent wearing him down into one final burst: the pop-up uppercut. But by that point it wasn't enough, it was his last exertion, and the energy put into getting King up in the air wasn't there to get his shoulders up before the count.  

I enjoy matches that lean into the combat sport that pro wrestling derives itself from, especially when it's done by two guys that encapsulate the classic professional wrestler in two very different facets. Really fun and solid stuff.

Written by Max Everett

When I saw it was announced on social media earlier tonight, I thought the TBS Superstation Showcase four-way match, or whatever it was called, would be on much later in the night, though it going on earlier made sense later on, with Rush challenging AEW World Champion MJF. I think we could have gotten to that challenge, however, with a singles match victory that would have meant more for Rush, perhaps over Orange Cassidy, who was also involved in this mess of a four-way.

The first three-quarters of the match were just fine. I assumed Rush was pulling out the victory here even before his challenge later on in the night, since he's been on such a hot streak lately. But I do think Brian Cage needs to get a win here very soon. He returned on "Dynamite" a few weeks ago to answer Kevin Knight's TNT Championship open challenge, and failed to score a win in his return match, then took another "L" here. Even Lio Rush could have used a victory on Wednesday night with his new "blackheart" gimmick, even though that's not really for me when it comes to AEW characters.

The last bit of the bout was where things fell apart, with the Don Callis Family getting involved and running off Cage and Cassidy, leaving Rush and Rush to go at it. It was also crazy to me that Jake Doyle made his return, but if you weren't listening closely to commentary and had looked away from the TV for a bit, you would never have known. Heck, even if you were looking at the screen, you may have been confused, because the cameras didn't get a good shot of Doyle's face whatsoever. His return absolutely should have been a bigger deal, or even just addressed in a backstage segment later on in the night, as the poor guy got hurt when he was still relatively new to AEW. Many sickos may know him, or at least be aware of him, but I thought this return just kind of solidified him as "just another guy" in the massive Don Callis Family.

Rush getting the victory here made sense in the end, since he's challenging for the AEW World Championship next week. But I think there could have been a better way to get him there than whatever this four-way was tonight. It was also disappointing that Doyle's return wasn't even acknowledged by Callis in a backstage bit. On a pretty solid episode of "Dynamite," even after the pay-per-view, this just didn't work for me.

Written by Daisy Ruth

The 2026 Owen Hart Foundation Tournament kicked off in style at AEW Double or Nothing 2026, with Will Ospreay and Swerve Strickland picking up first round victories in the men's bracket while Athena advanced to the semi-finals on the women's side of things. The men's bracket continued on the May 27 episode of "AEW Dynamite," and while both matches were a lot of fun, I wanted to highlight the bout between Mark Davis and "Jungle" Jack Perry.

This match was essentially the rubber match between the two men as they have met twice over the past few months. Perry successfully defended the AEW National Championship during the Zero Hour portion of AEW Dynasty 2026 against Davis, but "Dunkzilla" got his revenge by dethroning Perry during the Fairway To Hell edition of "AEW Collision" at the beginning of May. Now there was the chance to take a step closer to AEW All In London 2026 at Wembley Stadium and the AEW World Championship, and these two proved why they are quietly becoming one of the most reliable pairings in AEW.

First of all, remember when Perry turned heel and stopped doing all his flips and cool stuff and basically became what you'd get if you bought Raven off of Craigslist? Why did he do that? He is so much better as a babyface, and he's even better when he's faced with an absolute beast like "Dunkzilla." Gone are the days where he would get CM Punk chants every time he showed his face; he was fully in the groove during this one, and he even did half of the match in bare feet.

But we have to talk about Mark Davis, and it's a fitting show to highlight him since his tag team partner, Jake Doyle, returned from injury. I was one of the people who feared he might be cursed and be relegated to just making on-screen appearances as part of The Don Callis Family, but over the past few weeks and months, Davis has genuinely been a highlight of AEW programming. He knocks it out of the park in virtually every match he's been in, he's constantly improving despite already being in the business for some time, and he even has gold around his waist as a reward for his hard work. In this one, he looked like a monster at times, and despite how popular Perry is right now, even he wasn't getting up from that nasty Piledriver at the end of the bout.

Davis goes up against Will Ospreay next, and even though he won't win, you can guarantee that "Dunkzilla" will add another great match to his collection of 2026 gems.

Written by Sam Palmer

We had to wait an entire three hours tonight on this combination of "Dynamite" and "Collision" to get one non-squash women's match. The main event, the lights out Philadelphia street fight pitting Kris Statlander against Hikaru Shida, started at exactly 11 pm EST, kicking off the overrun for the night. While I of course hate the overrun, which was very long tonight, I wasn't switching off the TV for this match out of sheer principle, so maybe AEW got what they wanted there. More than the overrun, I hated tonight's complete lack of thought toward the women's division.

It was nice to see TayJay, Anna Jay and Tay Melo, back in action, and they had the only women's match in the normal three hours of showtime tonight. Their match was a squash, however, and the only backstage segment the pair had tonight was a beatdown angle by Divine Dominion that lasted maybe three minutes, and that's being generous. Sure, that furthered the storyline along, but it would have been nice to see the newly returned team wrestle an actual match, though AEW was obviously playing off the five-minute challenge of Divine Dominion's.

Equally as egregious was the fact we saw the remaining quarterfinals matches of the Men's Owen Hart Foundation tournament, but zero of the women's. This would have been a great night to run Alex Windsor's match against the wild card opponent, as fans are expecting a chaotic show already after the pay-per-view, and a return or whatever AEW has planned would be cool. That makes me nervous now that the wild card isn't as exciting as what we all may be thinking, but we don't find that out until next week.

We also didn't find out anything about Willow Nightingale's now-vacant TBS Championship, which is just stupid, with no other word for it. They couldn't take a few minutes, even with just commentary explaining what's going to happen? I'm assuming it will be another tournament, and maybe Tony Khan is waiting until the Women's Owen is wrapped, which would also be ridiculous. There's no way AEW would let a men's championship sit vacant with no plan announced for it, especially not on a three-hour show.

The lack of care put toward the AEW women's division is often complained about by fans — by me, especially — and tonight was a prime example of a lot of what's wrong with it. Stat and Shida had a great street fight, and hopefully a lot of viewers stayed tuned in for it, but waiting until the show was advertised to be over to put it on was just ridiculous.

Written by Daisy Ruth

In the main event of the "AEW Collision" portion of Wednesday's show, Kris Statlander and Hikaru Shida sought to settle their differences in a Lights Out Street Fight. 

Made infamous by the 2019 clash between Jon Moxley and Kenny Omega, Lights Out often goes that extra level than the average Street Fight, given the storyline spiel that the company will not be held responsible for anything that happens. One could argue that the marriage of convenience, divorce of resentment could have been given a little more TV time to justify the stipulation. But in any case, the match itself proved to be a fun plunder bout pitting two of the better women's wrestlers in AEW against one another. What followed were kendo stick spots, steel chair spots, an off-the-apron-through-a-table-at-ringside spot, and light tubes. 

It was just a chaotic blow-out at the top of the show that went 20 minutes overtime, which to some will understandably have come as a bit of an annoyance. But for me, I found it to be the perfect way to close out a three-hour show and end a subplot that has been running for the past couple of months.

Written by Max Everett